MUNICH—Eighteen years ago this month, Vladimir Putin became the first Russian leader to address the Munich Security Conference, arguably the most important annual gathering of the Washington-led transatlantic community that rebuilt and democratized much of Western Europe after World War II and expanded to include Central and Eastern European countries after the Cold War.
Putin’s infamous speech attacking the “unipolar world,” which he blamed the United States for creating, signaled the start of a more confrontational Russian approach to the collective West.
“What is a unipolar world?” the Russian leader asked his audience in Munich. “It is a world in which there is one master, one sovereign,” said Putin, looking toward the shocked Americans in the audience. “And at the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within . . . The unipolar model is not only unacceptable but also impossible in today’s world.”
What followed his speech in 2007 has had murderous, generational consequences. Russian boys born in that year are now old enough to be conscripted and sent off to fight in what US President Donald Trump recently called the “killing fields” in Ukraine. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February 2022, more than one million Ukrainians and Russians have been killed or injured.
Putin never hid his direction—the 2008 invasion of Georgia, then the seizure of Ukraine’s Crimea in 2014 and an intervention in Syria that kept dictator Bashar al-Assad in power. No wonder Putin thinks he can get away with his rogue behavior again in the face of a distracted and inconsistent democratic community.
Learning from history
The Munich conference convenes again this year, for its sixty-first time, at a similarly significant moment. And the conference’s participants may yet again witness history, set in motion by the newly reelected Trump and a flurry of activity aimed at ending Putin’s illegal, unprovoked three-year-old war on Ukraine.
In this Bavarian capital and beyond, it’s become something of a cliché to warn those tempted to appease despots not to become a contemporary Neville Chamberlain, in reference to the British prime minister who signed the Munich Agreement on September 30, 1938. That pact ceded the German-speaking Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Adolf Hitler’s Germany.
So it’s not surprising that some European officials arriving in town are worried that Trump risks walking into the same sort of trap after his ninety-minute call with Putin this week. They fear that by negotiating away the 20 percent of Ukrainian territory that Russia has occupied, the US president will bring about an end to the immediate hostilities but not to Putin’s expansionist ambitions.
However, if Trump digests the lessons of Munich 2007 and 1938, he could build upon and not reverse hard-won, US-backed gains in Europe after World War II and the Cold War. That is the assignment of the moment.
The lesson of 2007 is to take Putin at his word when he says that he intends to remake the European order and make Ukraine his own. The lesson of 1938 is that Trump must focus on what he rightly calls “peace through strength,” knowing that appeasing despots never ends well.
Making history
For those in Munich or watching the conference from afar, it’s worth studying the Trump administration’s whirlwind of activity in recent days toward negotiating an end to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine. There are both encouraging and concerning signals.
Among the positive signs is one that has received little attention: Trump dispatched Scott Bessent, the new secretary of the Treasury, to Ukraine to explore a possible deal that reportedly involves US military aid in exchange for Ukrainian rare-earth and other critical minerals—resources that increasingly make up the supply chain of modern influence and power in the world.
“The prospect of a deal between Ukraine and the US regarding arms for Ukrainian minerals may actually be more important than other developments,” John Herbst, a former US ambassador to Ukraine and now the Atlantic Council’s most significant voice on the conflict as senior director of its Eurasia Center, told me. Estimates suggest that Ukraine has trillions of dollars’ worth of rare-earth and other critical minerals, he notes. “That gives Trump reason to send Ukraine arms now, which would be a clear signal to Putin that further military operations may be fruitless, but also to make sure that any peace deal vouchsafes the security and economic viability of Ukraine.”
As for causes for concern, critics argue that the president and his cabinet are ceding too many negotiating points before peace talks start. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth said during a meeting of NATO defense ministers that Ukraine has to abandon its dreams of joining the Alliance and “illusionary goal” of recovering all territory lost to Russia since 2014 as part of a peace deal.
“It’s certainly an innovative approach to a negotiation to make very major concessions even before they have started,” Carl Bildt, an Atlantic Council International Advisory Board member and a former Swedish prime minister, wrote on social media on Wednesday.
The fact that Trump first phoned Putin and only afterward spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy also raises concerns. So too does the notion that Trump’s peace negotiations will start “immediately” and bilaterally with the Russians.
Writes the Washington Post’s David Ignatius, “The chummy tone of the American and Russian statements led some Ukraine supporters to worry that Trump and Putin might be ready to do a deal over Kyiv’s head—with concessions that reward Russian aggression and leave Ukraine vulnerable to future attacks.”
At the same time, Ignatius points to encouraging signs beyond Bessent’s deal-making—namely Hegseth expressing support for “a sovereign and prosperous Ukraine” and stating that any peace deal “must include robust security guarantees to ensure that the war will not begin again,” backed by capable European and non-European (though not US) troops.
Sorting signal from noise, the Atlantic Council’s Dan Fried, a former US assistant secretary of state for Europe, assesses that “the administration’s emerging Ukraine strategy could still be the basis for a decent outcome if the United States resists recognition of Russian illegal aggression against Ukraine, if it keeps NATO membership for Ukraine on the table and refuses to negotiate it with Russia, and if the United States and Europe can work out a military plan to support a backup force inside Ukraine.”
Hence why, as the Munich Security Conference opens, there is a palpable sense here that the city might again be a place where history is made—with US Vice President JD Vance, US Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and a large US congressional delegation all on hand.
To paraphrase the philosopher George Santayana, Trump can best avoid repeating Munich’s tragic history by remembering it.
Frederick Kempe is president and chief executive officer of the Atlantic Council. You can follow him on X: @FredKempe.
This edition is part of Frederick Kempe’s Inflection Points newsletter, a column of dispatches from a world in transition. To receive this newsletter throughout the week, sign up here.
Further reading
Thu, Feb 13, 2025
Europe needs a seat at the table in Ukraine negotiations
New Atlanticist By Jörn Fleck, James Batchik
European leaders must quickly make the case to the Trump administration for collaboration in negotiations—and show their willingness to step up.
Wed, Feb 12, 2025
What to make of the unfolding Trump strategy on Ukraine
New Atlanticist By Daniel Fried
Trump's call with Putin and his secretary of defense's comments with NATO counterparts stirred controversy. But the unfolding strategy could be the basis for a decent outcome for Ukraine.
Thu, Dec 5, 2024
Trump’s Nobel Peace Prize opportunity in Ukraine
Inflection Points By Frederick Kempe
Stopping Russia’s aggression in Ukraine will be Trump 2.0’s first test and opportunity, one that will have far-reaching consequences.
Image: Munich, Bavaria, Germany, 13 02 2025 Hotel Bayerischer Hof Munich Security Conference 2025 Venue Copyright: xdtsxNachrichtenagenturx dts_58825